Pompeii tells a story of star-crossed lovers, gladiatorial rebellion, and
multiple grudges that are all temporarily interrupted when Mount Vesuvius erupts
in a tower of ash, hurling fireballs upon, spreading earthquakes within, causing
a tsunami through, and otherwise devastating the city of the title. The philosophy of the screenplay by Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Batchler,
and Michael Robert Johnson is that the problems of a handful of archetypes
amount to a pretty sizeable hill of beans in a fiery, ash-filled world.

They
do, and they don't. The movie's
opening acts are serviceable in terms of making the story's romantic and
political conflicts seem worthwhile, even if they essentially are lifted
verbatim from other popular disaster and sword-and-sandal movies, and the
ancient city of Pompeii itself is convincing as a combination of art and costume
design complemented by computer-generated imagery. Once the volcano erupts, though, nothing about the drama changes, save
for the fact that the character must occasionally dodge a flaming rock, outrun a
tidal wave, or ride a horse faster than the cloud of pyroclastic flow—the hot
gas and rock that preserved the final positions of so many victims of the
eruption in those haunting plaster casts we've all seen and had seared into the
collective memory of humankind.

Throughout
the extended final act, we're not so much caught up in the various threads of
conflict as we are left wondering why these characters don't simply abandon
their relatively puny melodramas, if only for the basic goal of survival. Instead, the characters act as if there is not a legitimate, immediate
threat to their very lives and go about their business of wooing, seeking
revenge, or upholding their honor. The
movie may feature a few odd moments before the pivotal disaster strikes, but
once the volcano begins its deadly emissions, everything outside of the
well-choreographed carnage is inherently dumb and ridiculous in the particulars
of how the through lines of the plot progress over the course of the ensuing
chaos.

The
story begins in 62 A.D. with the slaughter of a tribe of Celtic horse warriors
by Roman soldiers in the province of Britannia. Only a young boy survives, and 17 years later, that boy has grown up to
become a successful gladiator who is transferred from the provincial capital
city of Londinium to Pompeii because of his skill. His name is Milo (Kit Harington), but he's known primarily as "the
Celt."

On the
road to Pompeii, Milo and Cassia (Emily Browning), a lady of the city, meet cute
over an injured horse, which Milo puts out of its misery by snapping its neck
like a twig. Thus, in incredibly
awkward fashion, is born the movie's central romance.

In
Pompeii, Cassia's father Severus (Jared Harris) has invited Senator Corvus
(Kiefer Sutherland) from Rome to discuss an investment in improving the city's
infrastructure. Corvus, naturally,
is the man who led the killing of Milo's people and also an insistent suitor of
Cassia.

From
this information, one should quite easily figure out how the rest of the story
until Vesuvius blows its top goes. Milo
wants revenge against Corvus, who extorts Cassia's hand in marriage from Severus
through the promise of a business deal. Corvus
is jealous of Cassia's obvious feelings for Milo and wants him killed. The people of Pompeii are upset with the power of Rome and close to open
revolt. It all comes to a climax in
the city's amphitheater during a gladiator match.

Then
the volcano awakens. The ground of
the amphitheater collapses, and even still, Milo and the surviving gladiators
keep fighting for their freedom, which seems sort of a given when their owner
hightails it out of the city in a litter carried by other slaves (His orders
that they carry him faster are amusing). Milo
must save Cassia from the villa where she has retreated to safety; that it's at
the base of the volcano defeats that plan. There
are man-to-man fights with fists and swords, including one between Milo's
comrade-in-arms Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Corvus' bodyguard (Currie
Graham)—two men who strangely don't throw down their weapons after coming to a
realization that neither has a personal stake in the fight between the main
characters. There's even a chase
sequence on a chariot and a horse through the smoky streets of Pompeii.

It's
not convincing, which it too bad, considering that Anderson's orchestration of
the bigger-picture destruction is—and effectively so. Granted, some of the special effects are of questionable quality, but
that only happens when during close-ups of actors against green screens. Otherwise, the scale of the devastation, especially the use of long
overhead shots to follow the swelling and surging of the tsunami that strikes
the city, and the visual effects used to convey it are impressive.

The
story and characters surrounding the city and its eventual decimation, though,
are far too generic for the movie to have any more of an impact beyond
admiration of its technical aspects. Pompeii
may accurately communicate the tragedy of this disaster on a sensory level, but
it is ultimately just sound and fury.